Egyptian Peasant Girl (1876)

William-Adolphe Bouguereau's Egyptian Peasant Girl (1876) is an oil on canvas which hangs at Newcastle’s Laing Gallery.

Bouguereau painted this working class Egyptian woman using his characteristic highly finished, almost illusionistic technique. He was better known for his portrayal of peasant life in the French countryside and he never visited Egypt. Details such as the silver jewellery and the ruins (outside my frame) in the background were based upon artefacts and artistic sources. Readily available publications and prints, developments in archaeology, and Western museums' expanding Egyptology collections all fuelled a fascination with Egypt in the second half of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, he is able to see beauty in lowly, humble people. Even though my picture is spoiled by the gallery’s lighting and the lens’s poor quality, the subject’s singular attractiveness shines through.

More so than Monsieur Bouguereau, God sees beauty that even eyes cannot detect. He sees broken, damaged people, and beholds what they shall become, not what they are.

Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel— rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.

1 Peter 3:3-4, NKJV